Julio Torres spins immigrant stress into satire

Summary

Fresh Air: Julio Torres Spins Immigrant Stress into Satire

Date: April 3, 2026
Host: Terry Gross (with intro by David Bianculli)
Guest: Julio Torres, comedian, writer, director, creator of Problemista and Color Theories

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Episode Overview

This episode of Fresh Air is a rich, playful, and moving conversation between host Terry Gross and Julio Torres, the Salvadoran-born comic and filmmaker known for fusing personal immigrant struggles with magical realism and absurdist humor. The interview traces Torres’ journey from El Salvador to New York, explores the real-life immigration stress that shaped his acclaimed film Problemista, and delves into the creative process behind his one-of-a-kind comedic voice and new special Color Theories.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Defining a Comic’s Absurdist Lens

[01:24–02:14]

• Torres’ new HBO Max special Color Theories is introduced as “a TED Talk masquerading as absurdist stand-up.” An early bit:
  • Julio Torres on navy blue:

    “Navy blue is the color of Law and Order. Navy blue is the color of having to create an account... This is a census. Navy blue is the color of airports, often literally, because that is the airport's way of saying whatever, your deal is not here.”
    (01:24)

• Asserting the humor in everyday bureaucracy and emotional life through color metaphors.

2. Drawing on Immigrant Experience for Problemista

[02:22–13:45]

• Problemista stems from Torres’s own experiences navigating the punishing paradoxes of the US immigration system.
• Gross sets up the film’s premise: an El Salvadoran immigrant (played by Torres) with visa issues, legal fees, and a burdensome job arrangement with an eccentric art widow (Tilda Swinton).
  • Torres recalls the ATM scene where an overdraft spirals into existential panic:

    “So, what, like an $8 sandwich becomes a $45 sandwich?... I distinctly recall making a cash deposit, and that deposit was flagged as potentially fraudulent. So it’s on hold now. For your protection... But that hold made me overdraw. For your protection. I’m sorry, but do I seem protected right now?”
    (03:48)

• The real-life “catch-22s” of US bureaucracy:
  • Needing a job to get a visa, but not being allowed to work without one.
  • The overwhelming financial burden:

    “The fact that I would have $6,000 saved somewhere, it was just laughable.” (06:51)

  • The emotional toll of relying on friends to crowdfund legal costs:

    “This GoFundMe got me where I needed to be within, like, two or three hours. It was just so moving to feel like a part of a community... I love making art... with friends.” (10:15)

3. Beyond Trauma: Nuanced Immigrant Stories

[10:45–11:41]

• Torres cautions against the “single story” of immigration (fleeing gangs/violence):

  “It wasn't really the story of someone escaping for survival. It’s the story of someone just escaping or leaving for a greater ambition—to find himself.” (10:55)

4. The Invention and Meaning of “Problemista”

[12:25–14:05]

• The film’s title began as a playful, invented word inspired by artistic terminology.

  “I was thinking of what you would call someone in an artistic movement in Spanish, like a surrealist—it's a surrealista. Then, maybe someone who creates art from problems is a problemista... It almost sounds like the kind of thing you'd make up in slang in El Salvador.” (12:25)

5. Artistic Perspective: Thriving Amid Problems

[14:05–16:06]

• Torres admits he’s drawn to problems:

  “I am someone who is certainly attracted to problems and ends up making work inspired by those problems.” (14:05)

• He reframes overwhelming challenges as inspiration and material for his playful, intricate craft:

  “It’s almost like the bureaucracy becomes this bouncy castle that the characters just get to play and laugh about.” (14:18)

6. New York Characters & the Allure of Difficult People

[17:52–19:54]

• Tilda Swinton’s character is an amalgam of real-life challenging personalities Torres encountered as an artist’s assistant in NYC.

  “I am very attracted to difficult people. I don’t see difficult people as nightmares to escape. I’m really drawn to them like a moth to a flame... Although, I was a very incompetent assistant.” (18:30–19:54)

7. Self-Perception: “Too Much,” Not Quite Fitting In

[22:04–23:50]

• Torres reflects on being “too much”—a quirky presence with unusual needs and anxieties:

  “I often feel like I don’t know how to do the very basic things you need to do... I’m this exotic animal that needs very particular things in order to survive and won’t eat the food you give him.” (22:32)

• Shares a distinctive approach to financial life:

  “I have never had a credit card. I aspire to never have a credit card and I aspire to never have credit... It would make me really uncomfortable to buy a home and feeling like I... was in trouble all the time.” (22:51)

8. Inventing Character: Designing Swinton’s Iconic Look

[23:50–26:27]

• Torres and Swinton collaborated deeply on her “fiery,” unglamorous aesthetic:

  “Her hair was just constantly in a fight with itself... She walked away from the hair salon with all these products that she’s supposed to use every day, but of course she doesn’t.” (24:48–26:27)

9. Mother, Collaboration, and the Roots of Visual Creativity

[26:27–28:34]

• Torres’ mother is an architect and designed the magical fort/castle in Problemista.
  • Their lifelong creative relationship set the foundation for Torres’ love of collaborative art-making:

    “I have really come to find that same joy in filmmaking... A director isn’t an all-knowing oracle... A director relies on collaboration.” (27:42–28:34)

10. Standing Apart: The Accidental Stand-Up

[30:38–35:54]

• Torres began stand-up to further his original goal of TV/film writing, not having prior exposure to the form in El Salvador.
• The lack of a comedy template allowed him to quickly find an original voice—abandoning imitations for his unique style.

  “There’s a learning curve... where, like, the first couple attempts... are crude impersonations of what you think that medium should be. Then I quickly give that up and just do the thing that I feel more comfortable in doing.” (34:27–35:54)

11. Giving Personalities to Objects and “Happy Meal” Satire

[35:54–40:21]

• Torres’ highly original material, like giving voice to inanimate objects or marveling at the absurdity of a “genocidal” Disney villain as a toy, springs from a retained sense of imaginative play:

  “The creative exercise of attributing personality and stories to inanimate objects is something that most of us have in childhood... I really disliked adolescence and adulthood so much that I just retained it.” (39:28)

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Memorable Quotes

• “Navy blue is the color of airports, often literally, because that is the airport's way of saying whatever, your deal is not here.”
  — Julio Torres (01:24)

• “Otherwise, the bank is just benefiting from my misfortune, from the misfortune of people who can't afford to make any mistakes, from people who have no margin of error. It's policy.”
  — Julio Torres as Alejandro in Problemista (04:10)

• “It’s almost like the bureaucracy becomes this bouncy castle that the characters just get to play and laugh about.”
  — Julio Torres (14:18)

• “I have never had a credit card... I aspire to never have credit or rely on credit for anything. I’m terrified of the idea of owing anything to anyone. It would make me really uncomfortable to buy a home...”
  — Julio Torres (22:51)

• “Her hair was just constantly in a fight with itself. And that really gave Tilda the fuel for the character of just imagining that every time that Elizabeth sees her reflection in the mirror, she's adjusting her bangs, she's adjusting the size of her fringes. And she gets so angry about the hairdresser who promised her that she would look exactly like the photo she showed her in a magazine.”
  — Julio Torres on creating Swinton's look (24:48)

• “I don’t really think I’m doing something that no one does. I think I never stopped doing the thing that we all [do as children].”
  — Julio Torres (40:21)

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Key Timestamps

• 01:24 — Julio Torres’ “navy blue” bit from Color Theories
• 03:48 — Problemista bank scene: the overdraft and “protection” paradox
• 10:15 — Torres describes humbling fundraising for a visa via GoFundMe, discovering community
• 12:25 — Meaning and invention of "Problemista"
• 14:18 — Torres frames bureaucracy as comedic inspiration
• 18:04 — On difficult New Yorkers and his odd attraction to them
• 22:32 — Feeling “too much”; not fitting into the basic structures of adulthood
• 24:48 — Designing Tilda Swinton’s visual transformation
• 27:42 — The importance of collaboration, rooted in relationship with his mother
• 34:27 — How not having stand-up comedy in El Salvador led to an original comedic voice
• 36:53 — Satirical bit about a Happy Meal toy as a genocidal Disney villain
• 39:28 — On never losing a childlike creativity with objects

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Tone and Takeaways

Torres’ warmth, offbeat wit, and gentle but pointed philosophical humor shine throughout, as Gross invites him to unpack both the practical frustrations of immigrant life and the creative flourishes that give his work its surreal, empathic power. The episode is full of empathy for those struggling through bureaucratic mazes, delight in the collaborative act of creation, and subtle, knowing laughs at the absurdity of modern systems and expectations.

Fresh Air listeners come away with a deep sense of how Torres turns personal anxiety, immigrant liminality, and “problems” into art—never losing a sense of play, or community, or hope.

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End of Content Summary

Transcript

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[David Biancolli]

This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Biancooli. Today's guest, Julio Torres is a comic, actor, director and writer. You may have encountered him in several different venues. His comedy specials on HBO and Comedy Central, the short films he used to do on Saturday Night Live, his bits as a correspondent on the Tonight show and as a writer and actor on the HBO series los Espookies. In 2023, he made his debut as a movie director with Problemista, the satirical film he also wrote and in which he starred in 2024. Julio Torres wrote, directed and starred in Phantasmas, an absurdist comedy series on. And now Torres has a new TV special called Color Theories, which premiered last week on HBO Max. In the fall of 2025, Torres performed color Theories as a one man off Broadway show. The Hollywood Reporter called it a TED Talk masquerading as absurdist. Stand up. Here's an early scene from Color Theories in which Torres defines a particular shade of the primary color blue.

[Julio Torres]

Navy blue is the color of Law and Order. Navy blue is the color of having to create an account. Navy blue is the color of people that demand that you RSVP through the website, even though verbally you already told them that you're coming. It's like, well, are you coming? Yeah, I told you I'm coming. Well, you know, you have to create an account and do it through the website. Okay, well, this no longer feels like a party, right? This is a census. Navy blue is the color of airports, often literally, because that is the airport's way of saying whatever, your deal is not here.

[David Biancolli]

Terry Gross spoke to Julio Torres in 2024 when his film Problemista was released. Here she is. To set things up.

[Terry Gross]

Problemista draws on Torres own experiences as an immigrant from El Salvador trying to overcome the financial and bureaucratic obstacles of the US Immigration system. Torres plays an immigrant from El Salvador whose visa is running out and needs a job, someone to sponsor him and money for the lawyers and fees that the renewal requires. Tilda Swinton plays Elizabeth, a potential problem solver, because she offers to sponsor him if he's able to get a museum or gallery show and sell the work of her late husband, which she needs to pay his leftover bills. But she's also a problem creator, demanding the impossible and arguing with everyone as she keeps assigning more impossible tasks. For Alejandro, he's also facing the many problems created by the immigration system. One day, with little time left on his visa, he goes to an ATM and finds his bank account is worse than empty. He actually owes the bank money, a fee because he's overdrawn. Here he is in a scene with the customer service rep from the bank.

[Julio Torres]

I'm sorry, but that's just not the amount I should have. According to my calculations. That is not the amount I should have in my account.

[Terry Gross]

What balance were you expecting?

[Julio Torres]

Well, I. I don't know. Zero would be great. Just. Just get me to zero again.

[NPR Sponsor Announcer]

Every time you overdraft, the bank must impose a penalty of $35.

[Julio Torres]

So, what, like an. Like an $8 sandwich becomes a $45 sandwich?

[NPR Sponsor Announcer]

$43.

[Julio Torres]

Again, that's the policy.

[Terry Gross]

Mr. Martinez.

[Julio Torres]

That makes absolutely no sense. I. I distinctly recall making a cash deposit, and that deposit was flagged as potentially fraudulent. So it's on hold now.

[Terry Gross]

For your protection.

[Julio Torres]

Right, but then that hold made me overdraw. For your protection. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, but do I seem protected right now? Why would he let this happen? Why not just have my card get declined? That's not the way things work. But that is the way things should work. Otherwise, the bank is just benefiting from my misfortune, from the misfortune of people who can't afford to make any mistakes, from people who have no margin of error. It's policy.

[Terry Gross]

It is what it is.

[Julio Torres]

No, no. Look at me. Just look at me. I know that you can hear me. I know that you can hear my voice when I tell you that. I know that this is not your fault. You didn't do this. The bank did this. And there is no reason for you to be defending them to me. Please. Please. At this point, I'm not even asking for my money back. I'm just asking for you to tell me that you agree with me, because I know that you do. I know that there's still a person in there, and I know that she can hear me.

[NPR Sponsor Announcer]

Please.

[Julio Torres]

I stand with bank of America.

[Terry Gross]

Okay. Julio Torres, welcome to Fresh Air. I love the movie. Thank you for being here.

[Julio Torres]

Thank you so much for having me.

[Terry Gross]

You like magic realism? And what's happening in the scene? The scene kind of switches from reality to what's happening in his mind, like how he's experiencing the scene, and he's actually being kind of choked between the arms of a monster while she's Telling him that it's the bang policy, and then finally shoots him. So your film keeps kind of alternating between what's happening in reality and. And what Alejandro is actually experiencing. So I take it you like magic realism or fairy tales? Because it's also like a fairy tale, the kind of fairy tale where there's horrible things happening.

[Julio Torres]

Yeah. I mean, it just happens to be the way that I am comfortable and feel able to explain feeling and just sort of get to the truth of my experience. I don't sit down and think, oh, I want to write something that's fantastical. In fact, I tend to want to write something that's very grounded in reality. And these flourishes just sort of come out as a way of explaining that.

[Terry Gross]

What's the closest you've come to the experience in the scene that we just heard? Obstacles you ran into in the immigration bureaucracy that you thought was particularly absurd.

[Julio Torres]

I mean, all the catch 22s of the immigration system, the needing to pay for a visa but not being allowed to work for it, which implies you should have had the money from somewhere else that isn't working. Even though the reality of so many people in this country, and especially immigrants in this country, is living paycheck to paycheck. You know, it's like the fact that I would have $6,000 saved somewhere, it was just laughable.

[Terry Gross]

That's what it takes to renew the visa.

[Julio Torres]

I mean, when I was doing it. Yeah. I don't doubt that it's more expensive now, in my experience, around $6,000, which includes the government fees, but also the fees for the lawyer. That because it's such a complex system, you don't want to get rejected because you feel something wrong. And they certainly make it so you're dependent on lawyers. So the film takes place during the time of me transitioning from a student visa to a work visa. But even when I was moving on from a work visa to an artist visa, which is the last visa I had, part of the requirement was to show that I had a established career in the US that warranted an artist visa. But at the same time, I had to thread the needle of not making it seem like I had been working and making money as an artist, because that would have been illegal, because I didn't have an artist visa.

[Terry Gross]

Yet you had a student visa?

[Julio Torres]

Originally, I came to the US With a student visa, and then I had a work visa. And then I had to go from a work visa to an artist visa, because under the work visa, I wasn't able to earn Money as a. As a stand up comedian or writer or anything creative, because that's not what the work visa is for.

[Terry Gross]

Well, that does seem to be a catch 22. How did you get around that?

[Julio Torres]

By showing a wealth of experience that had come for free, that had come from earning no money, which is sort of like the only way that you can thread that needle.

[Terry Gross]

What'd you do for no money?

[Julio Torres]

Oh, I mean, the irony of that is that it's not hard to establish a reputable career as an artist for no money.

[Terry Gross]

That is very true. That's how I started in public radio, even.

[Julio Torres]

Yeah. So it's not that big of an issue to show that you've done hundreds of shows for free, because that is the truth of pursuing something creative. By that point, I had done enough standup that getting the artist visa was not that difficult. What was difficult was, again, getting the money for it. And that was the second time that I was trying to get money for a visa. But this time around, I had made so many friends who actually encouraged me to make a GoFundMe, which I found to be humiliating. I did not like the idea. But then.

[Terry Gross]

Wait. But they did it funny. So that made it good. I think.

[Julio Torres]

They did it funny. They did it funny. Yes.

[Terry Gross]

They made a video called Legalize Julio, and they make a plea on your behalf that, you know, you should be able to stay in the US and you need money to do it. So help him.

[Julio Torres]

Yes. Yeah. And it was solved within a matter of hours. This GoFundMe got me where I needed to be within, like, two or three hours. It was just so moving to feel like a part of a community. And that's when I really, really realized that I love making art and all kinds of work in community and with friends. And that's why so many of my really close friends are in this movie and will continue to be in everything that I do.

[Terry Gross]

So when people think of immigrants from El Salvador right now, they think of, like, escaping gangs and poverty and danger. Did that figure at all into you leaving? And what year did you come to

[Julio Torres]

the U.S. i came to the U.S. in 2009. And no, no, to be honest, my experience is radically different than the crisis we're all seeing in the news. The crisis is very present in New York City right now. But, you know, the thing about me and the character that I play in this movie is that it wasn't really the story of someone escaping for survival. It was the story of. It's the story of someone just escaping or leaving for A greater ambition to find himself. And that is what I think makes this story very, very specific.

[Terry Gross]

So I want to get to the title of your movie, which is Problemista. And I thought, like, I'm not sure if that's a real word or if it's a word that you made up, because it's a great word. So I actually looked it up in a few places, and what it said was that it's a word for somebody who creates problems or solves problems, and it's especially used in chess. But I was talking to you about this right before the interview started, and you said you didn't even know it was a word. You kind of made it up because it sounded like this is something that would be a word, and it described a lot of your movie. So tell me about Problemista from your perspective.

[Julio Torres]

Yeah, I mean, to preface it, the road to finding a title for the movie was long. It had many titles during many different points, and none of them felt completely right. And then at one point, we were toying with the idea of calling it Problema, which is just literally means problem. And then I just. And then, I don't know, I just felt dread calling this movie Problem because it just felt so dreary. And that's not the tone of the movie at all. So then I was trying to find something a little bit more playful, and I was thinking of what you would call someone in an artistic movement in Spanish, like a surrealist. It's a surrealista. And then I thought, well, then maybe someone who creates art from problems is a problemista. So I just sort of. I just sort of made it up. And it sounds like. It almost sounds like the kind of thing that you'd make up in slang in El Salvador, sort of in the way that, like, you know, you hear about people being fashionistas or maxinistas. It's like, oh, a problemista is someone who is attracted to problems or. Or thrives within problems.

[Terry Gross]

So Alejandro is both a problem creator and a problem solver, though there's a whole lot he doesn't know how to do, and he just kind of fakes his way through. Since this movie is about problem solvers and problem creators and people who make art out of problems, where are you on that spectrum?

[Julio Torres]

I am someone who is certainly attracted to problems and ends up making work inspired by those problems.

[Terry Gross]

Give me an example.

[Julio Torres]

Well, this movie.

[Terry Gross]

What was the problem?

[Julio Torres]

I mean, obviously the bigger problem that was solved by the time I made this movie was the visa problem. And how that ended up not Being a hurdle that I had to overcome to then move on and make work. That ended up being the thing that I made the work about. And just sort of the joy that I found in dealing with that problem. You know, this movie deals with the problem of immigration, but I. I think of it as a very silly, happy and joyful movie that just sort of. It's almost like the bureaucracy becomes this bouncy castle that the characters just get to play and laugh about. And then there's also just the fact that it's my first movie and I made something that is so ornate, for lack of a better word. I was like, oh, okay, so this is why people's first movie are usually smaller.

[Terry Gross]

Yeah, no, that's right. That's right. Because you have, like, animation. You have, like special sets that you've designed and little worlds that you've designed and monsters that you've created. It's a lot for a first film.

[Julio Torres]

It's a lot. I really didn't.

[Terry Gross]

Oh, and you have some real stars in it too.

[Julio Torres]

Yes. Yeah. I mean, thank God none of them are high maintenance people. But to be completely honest, now that I look back on it, I think that I didn't take for granted the access that I felt was granted to me by making a movie. And I didn't take for granted the fact that I would ever be able to make another one. So I was like, why would I make a little preview of what I could do? Why not just go all in?

[Terry Gross]

So continuing with the theme of problemista, the Tilda Swinton character is a real problem creator. Her only way of relating is through arguing and making accusation. Her approach to life is to get what you want, become a problem. And part of her philosophy is always send back the food. So I want to play a scene where your character is in a restaurant with her, and this is at the point where she's throwing all these problems at him to get a show for her late husband's paintings. And these are often insurmountable problems. So they're meeting at a restaurant. She's not going to sponsor him until he succeeds. So meanwhile, the waiter comes in and you both order salads. It's a goat cheese salad, and you ask for it without the cheese. And then you're finishing your salads when the waiter comes back. And that's where we pick up. And here's Tilda Swinton starting off. Was there something wrong with your salad, Alejandro?

[Julio Torres]

Oh, no, no, no, it's fine.

[Terry Gross]

It's just I can't help noticing that they neglected to hold the cheese as we specifically asked them to.

[Julio Torres]

Oh, I don't think you said no cheese. I'm sorry.

[Terry Gross]

We did. And this young gentleman cannot eat cheese.

[Julio Torres]

It's. It's. It's fine.

[Terry Gross]

You tell him I. I'm.

[Julio Torres]

I'm vegan.

[Terry Gross]

He's allergic to goat cheese or everything.

[Julio Torres]

Oh, I apologize. We'll. We'll refund the salad.

[Terry Gross]

Well, that's not what we want.

[Julio Torres]

O. Okay. I. I just don't know what else I could do. I. I can't go back to super.

[Terry Gross]

Somebody else who would say something different.

[Julio Torres]

I'll get my supervisor.

[Terry Gross]

Oh, you're gonna hold us hostage now?

[Julio Torres]

Okay, so get my supervisor or don't. Those are the choices. I either get him or. Or I don't get him.

[Terry Gross]

Okay, so there's something so quintessentially New York about Tilda Sweeney's character, and I was wondering, like, did you know people like her in El Salvador, or was this a new kind of creature for you?

[Julio Torres]

Oh, I had actually never thought of that. No. I don't think I ever really encountered this kind of, as you put it, creature in El Salvador. No. Or at the very least, I was never in the receiving end of this kind of creature in El Salvador and in New York. And in New York. Boy, I was.

[Terry Gross]

Tell me more.

[Julio Torres]

I mean, she's an amalgamation of so many people that I met. I think that it's almost like the artist's rite of passage in New York City, at least to wind up being the assistant to so many people who are just so flustered by the fact that they haven't figured out so much. And I was a short term assistant for so many people. And I. Okay, so another part of me also identifying as a problemista is that I am very attracted to difficult people. I don't see difficult people as nightmares to escape. I'm really drawn to them like a moth to a flame. And then there are more than a few that I came to really, really, really empathize with and appreciate. And I think that Tilda's character is rooted in that. And also, to be completely fair about it, whenever I was an assistant, it was in the receiving end of the wrath of these art world egos. I also acknowledge that I was a very incompetent assistant. I have zero attention to. I can barely keep my own life on track. So the fact that I was ever tasked with doing that for someone else is just a recipe for disaster.

[Terry Gross]

Why do you think you're attracted to difficult people?

[Julio Torres]

I don't know the why yet. I haven't gotten that far in therapy.

[David Biancolli]

Julio Torres speaking to Terry GROSS about his 2023 film Problemista. He has a new special on HBO Max called Color Theories, adapted from his One Man Off Broadway show. After a break, we'll continue their conversation and film critic Justin Chang reviews the new film the drama starring Zendaya and Robert Pattinson. I'm David Biancooli and this is FRESH air.

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[Terry Gross]

off, Torres admitted to being attracted to difficult people like those in his film Problemista. And he said maybe because he's a bit difficult himself. That made me think of this clip from his 2017 Comedy Central stand up special.

[Julio Torres]

I'm sorry if I seem a little bit distracted. I just got my lab results back and just as every doctor suspected, I'm simply too much.

[Terry Gross]

I think that's hilarious.

[Julio Torres]

I had completely forgotten about that.

[Terry Gross]

Okay, so what makes you think that people think that you're simply too much?

[Julio Torres]

I think that I often feel like I don't know how to do the very basic things that you need to do. And so sometimes I feel like I'm this exotic animal that needs very particular things in order to survive and won't eat the food that you give him

[Terry Gross]

because you're a vegan?

[Julio Torres]

Yes, I'm a vegan. Yeah. But beyond that, being a vegan who can't cook, being a vegan who is not a self sustaining vegan. And then like, recently, another wall that I've encountered that I put there but now has become almost like pillar of my being is that I have never had a credit card. So I don't have credit. Really? Yeah. And I just don't want one. I aspire to never have a credit card and I aspire to never have credit or rely on credit for anything. I'm terrified of the idea of owing anything to anyone. It would make me really uncomfortable to buy a home and feeling like I. It would make me feel like I'm in trouble all the time. I don't think I. I understand that. Yeah. And I think that makes it so maybe I'll probably never own a home, but I'm sort of at peace with that.

[Terry Gross]

So. Continuing with the theme of problemista, I just want to get back to the Tilda Swinton character. The character who creates a lot of problems and whose default mode is anger and bittern and arguing. You've basically designed the character almost as if it was a clown or some kind of rag doll. Her hair is this kind of like, wild and scraggly, like, fiery orange red. Her cheeks have, like, so much blush on them, they look like her cheeks were painted on. And she's wearing, like, really eccentric, loud clothes. And all of this matches her, like, crazy mood and mood swings. So what was your inspiration for her look? Cause Tilda Swinton usually looks kind of ethereal on screen. There's something almost like translucent about her.

[Julio Torres]

The hair was one of the very first conversations we had. Talking about. Her hair was almost like the icebreaker between Tilda and I and just became the road to becoming friends, like, discussing the hair. First we talked color, and we decided that she should have the kind of red hair that you see in the streets but you rarely see in film because it's not a shade of red that anyone aims to get. It's the shade of red that something wrong happened. And then you ended up with that shade of red. It's like, almost like a little purpley. And then her haircut, the idea was that her hair cut would be at odds with her hair texture, so that her hair was just constantly in a fight with itself. And that really gave Tilda the fuel for the character of just imagining that every time that Elizabeth sees her reflection in the mirror, she's adjusting her bangs, she's adjusting the Size of her fringes. And she gets so angry about the hairdresser who promised her that she would look exactly like the photo she showed her in a magazine. We made this whole fantasy of like she walked away from the hair salon with all these products that she's supposed to use every day, but of course she doesn't. And then the look, we really wanted to capture that woman in the art scene, Lower east side, with a hint of like rupee, who has good taste, but there's always something that's like a little off.

[Terry Gross]

The mother in the film seems just like wonderful. She and the Alejandro character, your character, live in the countryside in El Salvador and she builds like a fort for him. I should mention here that your actual mother is a designer and architecture. So you grew up probably in a very visual world, which certainly serves you well as a filmmaker and as a comic.

[Julio Torres]

Yeah. So early in the film we see that the mother and son character have a bond and a relationship they're creating. And she creates this little castle, which is interesting that you use the word fort because that is sort of the intention of it is to keep him safe and sound and away from danger. And this like sort of magical little structure that's in the movie was designed by my mother, by my real mother.

[Terry Gross]

Wow.

[Julio Torres]

And I, you know, I love having a piece of her in what I do.

[Terry Gross]

Is she still in El Salvador?

[Julio Torres]

Yes. Yeah, my whole family.

[Terry Gross]

Oh, that's beautiful that you were able to immigrate to the US but you have a project together.

[Julio Torres]

Yeah, and we always have a project together, whether it's like coming up with a coat rack for my apartment or I have like an event that I need clothes for. And then I send her sketches of what I'm thinking of having made and she gives me her feedback or like she shows me the back that she's making for herself. We always have a back and forth of collaboration and I have really come to find that same joy in filmmaking because that's what being a director is. A director isn't an all knowing oracle creator who can create single handedly a world from the ground up. A director relies on collaboration and getting to work with people who can physically do things that I can't. And having them feel excited and seen by what we're doing is, I think, a testament to the way I grew up.

[Terry Gross]

In the movie, the mother, you know, builds this like castle or fort or whatever as an alternate reality where the son could be as a child, but it's also, it's a protected world. It's a world on, like, basically in the backyard. And she worries that when her son is an adult and leaves to immigrate to the US that the safe world that she had created for him was something he felt he had to escape. And now all of the problems of the world that she protected him from, he is endangered by. And I'm wondering if your parents experienced that, that they created this, like, safe world for you and a beautiful world with all of their designs, and then you go out to, like, New York City. So do you think that they worried that, like, you were out of their protected world and you were going to be exposed to all these dangers completely?

[Julio Torres]

Yeah. They were encouraging, but very nervous about me going off on my own and trying to find a life in an environment that was completely foreign to us, in a field that it was utterly foreign to them. You know, there's no picking up the phone and saying, hey, my son is interested in being a writer or director. I had never met a writer, anyone who does what I do. And so, yeah, no, they were. Oh, my God. I mean, the first, I think, two years. Every time I spoke to my mother on the phone, which was often, she would tell me to look both ways before I cross the street, as if, you know, that wouldn't occur to me. But I was definitely very, very protected. But I felt like I had a drive in me that I wasn't ever going to be able to explore within the confines of their safety.

[Terry Gross]

Well, also, I'm wondering, like, you started as a standup comic, right? Is there much standup comedy in El Salvador?

[Julio Torres]

No. At least not in the time when I was growing up there.

[Terry Gross]

So how were you exposed to it?

[Julio Torres]

I wasn't. So I came to the US Wanting to be a writer, wanting to be specifically a writer for TV and film. But very much like in the movie, my visa was running out, and I didn't know how long I'd be able to stay here. And I kept aspiring to find a day job that would make me so that I was able to stay here. And then I remember being at one of these day jobs one day, like, working a coat check and, like, thinking, well, why am I here? Am I in New York? Just so that I can afford being in New York? Is the goal of living in New York to make rent in New York? Is that all there is? And then I remember the original goal that brought me here, the wanting to be a writer. And I had no idea how to write a script that would ever get made. And then it just popped into my head. That stand up comedy was something that was available to me in New York City for free, meaning I didn't have to take any classes, I didn't have to know anyone in the business. And I could just Google New York City open mic tonight. And lo and behold, there was this website that had an inventory of every single open mic in New York City for free. So I started going to them as a way of showcasing my writing. And the very first time I did it was sort of like means to an end, the end being being a professional TV and film writer. And then I fell in love with performance. I fell in love with the world I accidentally wandered into and I made a lot of friends in that world. And then the stand up became a calling card for what I do now.

[David Biancolli]

Julio Torres speaking to Terry Gross in 2024. More after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

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[Terry Gross]

You know, I think that maybe not having a template for comedy because you didn't really grow up with standup helped you find a very original voice because it's not like you were imitating somebody since since you hadn't grown up watching it.

[Julio Torres]

I will say that the very, very first time I did an open mic in New York City. So one thing that I think that people who have never done a comedy open mic don't realize is that the audience in the open mic is just other comedians waiting to go up. There's no real audience. It's almost like a workshop. And at the good open mics, everyone is very engaged in listening to each other and, like, cheering each other on. At the very bleak ones, everyone's on their phone just killing time till they get to go up and be ignored. And the latter is the first ones I ever did. And in waiting to go up, I was just sort of observing how people did it, and I was like, okay, okay, you have six more people before you have to go up. You better learn how to make this fast. And then the first time I performed, I was sort of doing my impression of what I thought a standup comedian should be, and that didn't feel right. So then I just decided to ignore it after that. And I think there's a learning curve with any discipline that you pick up where, like, the first couple of attempts, at least in my case, are crude impersonations of what you think that medium should be. And then I quickly give that up and just do the thing that I feel more comfortable in doing.

[Terry Gross]

A lot of your standup comedy is based on, like, giving personalities to objects and talking about, like, colors and shapes. This is not your standard standup material. It's not about sex. It's not about neurosis. You impersonate a Brita filter in one of your bits, and I actually want to play another clip. And in this, you're talking about toys and stuff, and I'm going to give away one of the punchlines because I think it's going to be a little hard to hear, and you're not seeing it. So I'm just going to help out a little bit by saying this is about one of the Happy Meal toys that you saw and how it makes no sense to you. So here's a clip from my guest, Julio Torres doing standup.

[Julio Torres]

Do you remember the Disney animated film the Hunchback of Notre Dame? It wasn't a hit, but it was there. It's just sort of what we got that year. Sometimes we get lions, sometimes we get genies. Sometimes we get a tender Parisian drama for the children. But a part about that movie that really, really stayed with me was its villain, this withering, possibly closeted, deeply troubled little man named Monsignor Claude Frollo. And during the peak of his narrative arc, Monsignor Claude Frollo sings into the roaring flames of the fire about his lust for the gypsy girl, Esmeralda. And in that moment we see him turn lust into misogyny, into essentially genocide. Anyway, that was a Happy Meal toy. So while some children were playing with like a Ninja Turtle or a Transformer, others were like, oh, yeah, mine is this sort of like medieval court justice. He's morally bankrupt. There's a lot of self haters hate in him. That combined with power just makes him lash out in really toxic and scary ways. And sometimes, I don't know, I put him in a little car.

[Terry Gross]

And in the TV special, and this is from a 2019 HBO comedy special called My Favorite Shapes, you see the little figure and he looks like he's singing in an Italian opera, as opposed to this really evil figure and Priestly, this monsignor who's really evil. So it's really funny. You seem to love miniatures and objects. And do you attribute that to your mother being an architect and designer and your father being a civil engineer? So that they inhabited the world of design and objects?

[Julio Torres]

That must be it. But I also think that the creative exercise of attributing personality and stories to inanimate objects is something that most of us have in childhood. I mean, that is literally what playing with a toy is feeling for them, making up stories for them. And I think that most people lose that somewhere in adolescence. It is just sort of gone by adulthood. And I think that I really disliked adolescence and adulthood so much that I just retained it that I just like never shook it away. So I don't really think I'm doing something that no one does. I think I never stopped doing the thing that we all.

[Terry Gross]

Julio Torres, it has been great talking with you. Thank you so much for coming on our show.

[Julio Torres]

Thank you for having me.

[David Biancolli]

Julio Torres speaking to Terry Gross in 2024. His new show is called Color Theories, now streaming on HBO Max. Coming up, film critic Justin Chang reviews the new film the drama starring Zendaya and Robert Pattinson. This is FRESH AIR.

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comes from NPR sponsor Hulu. From the executive producers of the Handmaid's Tale comes The Testaments a new Hulu Original Series Golden Globe nominee Chase Infinity plays Agnes, who guides new student Daisy at Aunt Lydia's school for future wives. Their bond leads the sisterhood to start challenging authority and seek independence. This is just the beginning of their reckoning. Watch the new Hulu Original series The Testaments, premiering April 8 on Hulu and Hulu on Disney for bundle subscribers. Terms apply.

This message comes from Angie. If you're tackling a home project, check out angie.com from roofing to remodels and everything in between, Angie connects you with skilled pros who do such a good job, you might trust him to do other things, like pull out your tooth or be your kid's godfather. Don't actually ask them to do those things, just let them get the job done well, Angie, the one you trust to find the ones you trust, Find a pro for your [e-mail] that's a n g I.com in the new movie

[David Biancolli]

titled the Drama, Robert Pattinson and Zendaya play an engaged couple whose happiness is derailed by a secret from the past. It's the latest from the Norwegian filmmaker Christopher Borgli, who previously directed Nicolas cage in the 2023 dark comedy Dream Scenario. The drama opens in theaters this week. Our film critic Justin Chang has this review.

[Justin Chang]

In the drama, Robert Pattinson and Zendaya play Charlie and Emma, a Boston couple whose wedding day is fast approaching. The writer, director Christopher Borgli, cleverly recaps their romance as a series of happy memories, some of which they plan to share with their friends and family members at the upcoming reception. One such memory is the first time they met in a bustling cafe. It involved a misunderstanding, plus a white lie and a bit of stalkerish behavior from Charlie. It wasn't too funny at the time, but two years later they can laugh about it. Humor plays an important role in their relationship. In this scene, Charlie, who works as a curator for a Cambridge art museum, is complaining about a potentially problematic retrospective when Emma breaks the tension, as she often does, by pulling down his pants.

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I did. I said, if everyone knows he's a piece of, then why are we doing a retrospective in the first place?

[Justin Chang]

It's like so incredibly irresponsible.

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No one ever cares until it's too late, and then it always ends up backfiring on me.

[Julio Torres]

Emma, I'm being serious.

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It's not funny.

[Terry Gross]

No, I agree with you. This is not funny at all. It's very serious. You're laughing.

[Julio Torres]

I love how you always find a

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way to turn my drama into a comedy.

[Justin Chang]

Most of the drama though, concerns the kind of revelation that can't be so easily laughed off. One night, while Charlie and Emma are hanging out with their married friends Rachel and Mike, they all wind up playing a boozy game of what's the worst thing you've ever done? Emma's answer is a doozy, and it's the big twist on which the drama hinges. I won't give it away, but let's just say that it involves not something terrible that she did, but something terrible that she almost did but decided against at the last minute. Emma's disclosure stops the merriment dead, throws her friends and her fiance for a loop. Rachel responds with particular outrage. She's played by Alana Heim in a much more ferocious performance than her star making turn in licorice pizza. And Pattinson is very good as Charlie, a loving groom to be who's suddenly engulfed by anxiety in the days that follow. As the wedding countdown accelerates, Charlie finds himself wondering how well he truly knows the woman he's marrying. The problem with the drama is that it doesn't quite seem to know what to make of Emma either, even as it tries to account for how she could have come so close to doing what she didn't ultimately do. We see flashbacks featuring another actor, Jordan Curate, as a 15 year old Emma who experiences her share of depression and loneliness. But these scenes, which could be a mix of Emma's unreliable memories and Charlie's even less reliable hallucinations, feel like paint by numbers psychoanalysis. And although Zendaya's performance is skillful and empathetic, it's hard to connect her Emma to the younger version of the character. The movie's premise seldom feels like more than just a premise. I didn't believe that Emma could be capable or even almost capable of the horrific act in question. Borgley previously made the 2023 film Dream Scenario, which starred Nicolas Cage as a Nebuchy University professor who inexplicably began haunting the dreams of those around him. Like the drama, it was a darkly amusing yet conceptually half baked comedy about the power of suggestion and the ease of villainizing someone for something they didn't actually do. You could say both of these movies are loosely about cancel culture, something of which Borgli may have some first hand knowledge. In 2012 he wrote an essay for a Norwegian magazine about his relationship with a teenage girl who was 10 years his junior in which he sought to grapple with a long standing taboo and defend his actions. That essay recently resurfaced online before the rollout of the drama, unsurprisingly stirring fresh waves of outrage. Is humanity capable of authentic change or redemption? In a way, Borgli sidesteps that question. His great skill is for wringing tension, dread and squirm inducing comedy from ugly situations. And the drama is most successful not as a character study, but or a moral inquiry, but as a wedding stress movie. It's about the horrors of having to worry about DJs, photographers and florists when you're not even sure you're going to have a marriage at the end of the day. In a way, Berkeley is trying to skewer the empty flash and pomp of certain social rituals, which serve only to keep us from really talking about the things that actually matter. He ends the movie on a faintly hopeful note that Charlie and Emma will ultimately move past this crisis, though he doesn't rule out the possibility that they might look back at their marriage and see it as the actual worst thing they've ever done.

[David Biancolli]

Justin Chang is a film critic for the New Yorker. He reviewed the drama, now out in theaters, on Monday's show. Arsenio hall, the late night host who gave hip hop its first home on television, sat with Magic Johnson as Magic told the world he had HIV and helped propel Bill Clinton to the White House with one saxophone performance opens up about why he walked away from the biggest dream of his life. I hope you can join us. To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews. Follow us on Instagram @NPRFreshAir. You can subscribe to our YouTube [e-mail] thisisfreshair. We're rolling out new videos with in studio guests, behind the scenes shorts and iconic interviews from the archive. Fresh Air's executive producer is Sam Brigger. Our senior producer today is Thea Chaloner. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham, with additional engineering support by Joyce Lieberman and Julian Herzfeld. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Roberta Scrock, Ann Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Susan Yakundi, Anna Bauman and Nico Gonzalez Whistler. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavey Nesper for Terry Gross and Tonya Moseley. I'm David Biancooli.

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this message comes from Angie if you're tackling a home project, check out angie.com from roofing to remodels and everything in between, Angie connects you with skilled pros who do such a good job you might trust them to do other things like pull out your tooth or be your kid's godfather. Don't actually ask them to do those things, just let them get the job done. Well Angie the one you trust to find the ones you trust. Find a pro for your [e-mail] that's a n g I.com do you ever

wish you could predict the future?

[Terry Gross]

Well, some scientists try to do that

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every year, forecasting when cherry blossom trees will bloom each spring.

[Terry Gross]

It's a wild guess but but there is some science involved in that and

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there is a lot riding on the peak bloom forecast, tourism, climate change models and more. Listen to shortwave on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcast to hear how scientists are predicting the future.